ODESSA, Texas — The Department of Veteran Affairs announced on Monday that COVID-19 vaccines are mandatory for health care personnel.
NewsWest9 spoke with the Director of the West Texas VA Health Care System to see how the mandate affected operations in this part of the country.
"I don't think there was a lot of surprise. I think we saw things moving this direction for a while in the VA and certainly in the national level," said Jason Cave, Director for West Texas VA Health Care System.
He says that this change in the VA system is something positive and hopes that this will encourage more people to get vaccinated to avoid another surge in COVID-19 cases.
"We got to make sure that when there is a surge of community cases, that it doesn't take a bunch of your health care workers out of the health care facility because they are sick themselves."
NewsWest9 reached to local hospitals in the area and they all encourage their employees to get vaccinated, but they are not required to do so.
In a statement sent to NewsWest9, Midland Health states the following: "Currently, Midland Health does not require our workforce to get the COVID-19 vaccine. However, we do highly encourage the vaccine among our employees and community. We are proud that we have reached 70% of our workforce being vaccinated and each day work towards improving that number."